Constitutive modeling of nonlinear strain and time dependent behaviors of ballistic gelatin at low strain rates

Abstract

The present study is concentrated in constitutive modeling of ballistic gelatin at low strain rates. The relaxation tests, simple shear tests at strain rates ranging from 0.0005/s to 1.245/s and uniaxial compression tests at engineering strain rates ranging from 0.004/s to 0.208/s are carried out, and nonlinear strain and time dependent behaviors of ballistic gelatin are observed. A visco-hyperelastic model is proposed based on the Prony series and the reduced polynomial strain energy potential. The material parameters are obtained by fitting to the data of the relaxation and simple shear tests and validated by predicting the compression stress-strain relationships in the uniaxial compression tests. The nonlinear strain and time dependent behaviors of ballistic gelatin are well captured by the model proposed.